Update: College Graduate (MedBoard: Joint Base Lewis-McChord)

Thought I’d write a little update now that it’s been a little over a month since my last post. I’m still technically in the army and enjoying the life that is terminal leave. I started my new job the day I went on terminal leave and it’s been great. I’m actually doing I.T. work once again, unlike my time in the army. I work for a great company full of some awesome people. The company actually makes a difference in the community as well. After this first month of working there, I know I made the right job choice and I see myself working here for a very long time.

One of my big goals when joining the army was to get my bachelor’s degree. I’m happy to say that as of today I am now a college graduate. My last two classes officially ended on May 6th, then they did an audit to make sure everything was in order before the graduation was official. It’s been a long long road to get to this point. A lot of hard work taking one class at a time and working on schoolwork most nights, but it is a really great feeling…and a large weight lifted off my shoulders. I’m feeling pretty darn accomplished…and happy. I’ll be taking a little while off before pursuing any more certifications or anything, it will be a welcome break.

As for army news…as I mentioned earlier, I’m extremely happy being on terminal leave…I really enjoy the freedom of being a civilian once again. I have a nice beard I’ve been working on since the first day of terminal leave. I’ve loved being able to wear whatever clothes I deem appropriate for weather conditions or how I feel. I also have been taking advantage of the nice weather and riding my motorcycle to work everyday…unlike the army I don’t need any special training or have special meetings with my boss, I just ride!

I did go on Ft. Lewis a couple weeks back and received my retired military ID card, but it turns out they messed something up. In DEERS (Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System) they still had my active duty status as November of 2015 and also forced in my retirement date of May 28th 2014…both cannot coexist. This has prevented me from being able to sign up for Tri-Care Prime for me and my family that is provided during retirement. Tri-Care still sees me as being active duty with no retirement date. Leave it to the army to screw things up. Since I’m closer to the naval bases here in the Bremerton area, I drove to the naval sub base near Silverdale and visited their DEERS office with my DD214 and orders in hand. They were able to remove my active duty status, but said I had to come back on the 28th of May in order for them to input my retirement status. This is a little bit of BS because right on the Tri-Care website it states that we can enroll up to 90 days before our retirement date as long as it’s in DEERS. I’m not going to get too stressed out about it. I’ll just take a break at some point during the 28th and make the short trip to their office again. I’m too happy to be out, finally have my degree, and have a great job for this stupid crap to get me down!

Don't Forget Me - (Germany) Day 14

Woke up at 0700 today just to get ready and start the day. After eating and hanging out with my wife for a bit, I started to wonder when I was going to be picked up. I had talked with my sponsor last night via e-mail and he said someone would be by to pick me up. Unfortunately he is teaching a security+ class all week, so he will not be able to help me out at all. I have an appointment at noon in Central Processing for more briefings. I also don't have any contact numbers except for my sponsor, so I just kind of hung out and waited.

As noon approached and there was nobody in sight I gave up hope of making my appointment. It wasn't until almost 1300 when I received a call from a sergeant in my office telling me that he's on his way. When we arrived at Central Processing he came in and they had to reschedule my appointment to 23rd. He left me there so I could try and finish up my walk-in processing.

I only had to go to housing and DEERs. Housing was pretty simple, I went in and they signed my sheet. I also turned in the discrepancy list while I was there. The discrepancy list is basically a list of damages we found while walking around our home. We have to document them so when we move out, we are not charged for them. Everything was in pretty good shape, just some minor scratches on the floor and such.

I then went to DEERs and sat…and waited…and waited. I started to wonder if anyone was even working in the back because there had been no movement. I had my number (45) and was patiently watching the TV in the waiting room with a number of other folks. About 20 minutes later they called the next number….24. I got up and walked out. I was able to pay my Internet bill, pick up some stuff from the exchange and waste some more time before heading back. I sat back down in the waiting room of DEERs and after about 15 minutes I hear them call number 29. This is crazy! A little bit later a guy came out and said they only had one person working so it was highly unlikely that all of us would be serviced before the end of the day. Looks like I'll try again tomorrow.

I called the sergeant that gave me a ride and he picked me up, then took me back to the office for a bit. I ended up catching a ride with a different sergeant to my place. The wife and I then enjoyed dinner together and watched some more Sons of Anarchy…what a great show!

Pain in the Butt - Reception Day 2 (Basic Training) Day 2

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Some guys doing PT on their own 

(A good idea in reception, so you can try and stay in shape)

These entries are from the letters that Brandon has mailed to me. 

Last night really sucked. Fire Guard had started. Fire Guard is where two people have to stay up for an hour in rotating shifts throughout the night. It wasn’t even my turn, but everyone doing it was so noisy I only slept about 15-30 minutes at a time. Woke up with a headache that has stuck with me all day. To top it off my stomach is acting up too. For breakfast all I could eat was a bunch of fruit. I’m hoping I start feeling better before we actually start basic. I can’t imagine doing any physical fitness right now feeling like crap.

We started the day after breakfast with all our shots and filling out medical forms. One shot in the butt – still feels like a charlie horse. Two shots in the right arm and one in the left, then four little tubes were filled with my blood (my DNA kit). Next came the hearing test. 8 guys stuck in a very small box. Everyone was sweating and tired. It seemed to take forever. One dude had to stay behind because on the plane flight from MEPS he lost all hearing in his right ear. Not sure what’s going to happen with him.

Lunch was lasagna, which i ate, but nothing else, my stomach is still not 100%. After lunch we filled out our DEERS paperwork and all other financial paperwork. DEERS is for all the benefits for dependents. Then there was a lot of sitting around listening to briefings (Red Cross etc.) trying very hard not to fall asleep.

We also took photos of our company and I had to put on my soldier face (no smiling).

We finally have another break, I tried to call my wife and she didn’t answer…damn.

*side note: I heard a rumor that the sergeants can’t swear. It’s pretty funny to listen to because everything is “doggone”, “where’s the doggone thing”, “you better straighten up your doggone collar” etc. You still hear a four letter word every now and then, I can’t imagine the Drill Sergeants hold back. In fact, he walked in last night and saw we were on our phones and started screaming “Get the fuck off the phone!!!!”

*another side note: The D-Fac (aka Dining Facility) has a fascination with only using spoons no matter what you are eating. Have you ever tried to eat a salad with a spoon?

We had chow tonight, my stomach is still a bit of a mess. I basically only ate veggies. As I sat down and realized they have soft serve ice cream machine. What a temptation, but I’ll be staying away from that. Right now everyone is just hanging out in the barracks. Nobody is sure how long we have, or if we’re here for the night. Rumor is we may be shipping out to basic on Thursday. There are a lot of different personalities here. There are a group of guys that just can’t stop talking and joking. I hope I don’t end up with them in basic. I see a lot of "smoking" (this is what they call a physical punishment like push-ups etc.) in their future. There is this one guy I can see totally breaking down and quitting. He already gets picked on a lot by the recruits, I fear a drill sergeant is going to tear him apart. There are also 3 foreigners  who are joining to get their American citizenship. Pretty cool, I didn’t even know there was such a thing.

A clip from a DVD I purchased near the end of basic training.
This shows the process we went through to get all our shots at Fort Benning.